The Ninety-Eighth Illustration: A Custom-Made Child for the Painting Contest

In the Painting Tournament, apprentices had their own arena, where potential was tested. Painters had theirs, where creativity was judged. And the arena for grandmaster painters was something entirely different.

Sang Sang stood among the grandmasters of Qinghe Painting Academy, a single fresh bud amid a crowd of middle-aged and elderly people, strikingly eye-catching. Yet she remained calm and composed, carrying herself with an elegance and dignity that made anyone who looked at her feel no amusement, only respect.

At first, when the Qinghe Dean insisted that she compete as a grandmaster, every teacher in the academy objected. For one, Sang Sang had never registered with the Painter's Association. For another, she was far too young to inspire confidence.

Then the dean produced the record sheet from Sang Sang's dormitory birthing pool. It showed a highest spiritual energy content of ninety-nine percent, a standard most teachers could not even approach. Yet that figure did not appear once or twice on the sheet, but again and again, with each occurrence followed by another zero. After that, all the teachers fell silent. Absolute strength inspired more reverence than royal blood ever could.

Now Sang Sang's position stood just behind the Qinghe Dean's. Her royal identity had been exposed by Elder Xing, and outsiders all assumed that Qinghe Painting Academy was elevating her simply because of who she was. They sneered in secret, certain the dean had lost his senses. On the field, there was only victory and defeat, no distinction between noble and lowborn. This time Qinghe Painting Academy was sure to lose badly.

It was not only outsiders. Even the students at Qinghe thought the same, though they dared not rebel while the teachers kept them in check.

But in the very first match, Sang Sang shattered every doubter's expectations.

The literary contest came first, the martial contest after.

The subject for the first grandmaster literary contest was an infant portrait.

In Redleaf City, forty-one grandmaster painters corresponded to forty-one families. Those families had fought through fierce competition before the tournament to earn their places. On site, the pairings were drawn by lot. Sang Sang was assigned a middle-aged couple, both already past their youth, dressed in lavish clothing. Their family background was likely not bad, but their faces were miserable, as if their bitter gall had nearly dripped from their mouths. Their manners, however, were impeccable.

They wanted a daughter, one as beautiful as possible, with the highest possible affinity for spiritual energy.

That was not a demanding request. For children, almost everyone wanted the same thing.

Sang Sang looked at them twice. After they bled into the dish, she simply mixed her pigments and took up her brush to begin painting, not even bothering with a preliminary sketch.

The couple's expressions shifted from misery to despair. Of course, they did not dare disrupt the competition, so they could only cling to each other and wipe their tears onto one another's shoulders.

The couple's misery made the other forty families secretly rejoice. Thankfully, the contestant they had drawn was not a child. Even royal blood could not alter that person's careless, offhand approach, treating an infant portrait as if it were merely a garment or a lifeless object.

If Sang Sang could have heard what they were thinking, she probably would have wanted to say, "Foolish mortals." Not making a draft did not mean being careless. Ever since she had reached the heavenly tier, she had stopped sketching beforehand altogether. Her thought and awareness had grown so powerful, and her control over her body and limbs so precise, that they had reached the level of cells. Whatever she conceived in her mind, her brush could bring forth. Draft or no draft, it had long since become unnecessary.

While the other contestants had only just begun painting on the tournament paper, Sang Sang's work was already finished.

The little girl was three years old. Though her features had not fully matured, she had double eyelids, long lashes, large eyes, a slightly upturned nose, and petal-soft lips. When she smiled, two tiny dimples appeared. She was lively, charming, pure as snow, and adorable beyond words. Most importantly, anyone could see at a glance that she was her parents' daughter, having inherited only the best features of both.

The middle-aged couple beamed the moment they saw the infant portrait, rubbing their hands together in delight. Much of the misery and despair had already vanished from their faces, replaced by a faint smile. They still did not know the child's spiritual affinity, but even her appearance alone was enough to make her lovable.

Sang Sang carried the infant portrait to the side of the tournament's birthing pool and personally placed the painting into the water. Watching a soul enter the image as the portrait slowly gained depth and the child's gaze grew ever more vivid, she felt a complicated mixture of emotions she could not quite name.

She could have hidden her true abilities. According to records from previous years, a spiritual energy content of eighty percent was already enough to secure a spot in the royal capital finals. Yet Sang Sang still chose to pour in the full one hundred percent. She did not want imperfections to exist in anything that came from her hand.

The child sat up from the water and grinned at Sang Sang, her eyes curving, her dimples sweet and delicate, enough to melt anyone's heart.

"Darling!"

The middle-aged couple stepped forward, lifted the child out of the water, dried her body, dressed her, and kissed her over and over, unable to love her enough.

Sang Sang took a step back and gave the family of three their space. This was the first human being she had painted. Although creation required the aid of spiritual energy, and although the three genetic locks could not be removed, it was indeed born from her brush.

By then, other contestants had already finished their works and come to the birthing pool. Seeing the newly born little girl, one of them smiled and praised, "Congratulations. She looks quite good."

The implication was clear: probably only her looks were worth seeing.

Sang Sang was not fond of trading barbs. In any case, the one who would be slapped in the face later would not be her. She did not leave either, but sat by the pool and watched the others' children come to life, analyzing the principles behind it and gradually filling in the puzzle of the laws of creation.

The Qinghe Dean did not go to watch his own infant portrait come to life. Instead, he teased the little girl created by Sang Sang, patting her head, her hands, and her back, his smile growing ever more obvious. Had anyone else done that, they would have been beaten for acting like a pervert. Then the teachers from Qinghe Painting Academy gathered around him and copied his actions exactly, their smiles equally matched. The other grandmaster painters began to suspect that everyone from Qinghe Painting Academy had caught some contagious illness, and they could not help but move farther away.

After all the children had taken form, they lined up and entered the examination platform one by one, arranged according to the order in which their creators finished. Sang Sang's little girl was first.

The Painting Tournament had no judges, because all the painters were contestants, and people from other professions had no right to evaluate a painter's skill. The one serving as judge was the Heavenly Dao, that is, the Lord of Danxia.

Beneath the platform, someone laughed and said, "Her looks aren't bad."

The next instant, a pillar of spiritual light shot straight into the sky from the examination platform. The result, a perfect one hundred percent affinity, left those waiting to laugh utterly dumbfounded. As for the people who had spoken mockingly, their expressions twisted as though they had swallowed something foul and rotten from the human digestive tract. The middle-aged couple, unable to believe what they were seeing, rubbed their eyes again and again. Amid the envious, jealous, and bitter gazes of the other families, they laughed and cried at once, babbling their thanks to Sang Sang, feeling only relief and gratitude in their hearts.

Sang Sang waved a hand and, without waiting for the later results from the other contestants, gave Qinghe Dean a brief greeting and turned to leave.

After watching dozens of children come into being one after another, she had gained some new ideas about creation, but they still required experimentation.

Once outside the venue, word that a grandmaster painter had produced a child with maximum spiritual affinity had already spread. Many people were asking who the grandmaster painter was, what the approximate price would be for a custom infant portrait, and how one might get close to her.

"Sang Sang, that little girl was pretty cute. Paint one for me too, will you?" The Heavenly Emperor appeared out of nowhere behind Sang Sang, resting his chin on the top of her head, his tone overflowing with anticipation. "Best if the eyes are like yours, the nose is like mine, the mouth like yours, the ears like mine, the skin like yours, and the height like mine..."

Please support the official release. If that is not possible, at least help with the first subscription. And after reading, don't forget to vote.